I've been on Facebook for about 7 years. In those last 7 years, a slew of "friends" have revealed themselves to be scholars on a wide array of topics. Most obviously, politics. We've all seen someone step on their soapbox (including myself) and give a dissertation when it suits their convictions. That's fine. Those convictions are yours. You own them. And they are, inevitably, your opinion to do what you want with. God bless!

But...but...I can't help but laugh when I see someone complain about a topic they've NEVER mentioned before the news told them they should be angry about it. Or afraid of it. I'm not an expert on constitutional law. Neither are many of you. Same goes for Marine Biology. The behavioral science of primates. Ebola. Propofol. Suicide. Homicide. Genocide. How meat patties at McDonald's are made. The contradictory and complex history of institutional slavery. Racism. Sexism. Socialism. The carbon consistency in the atmosphere. Global warming. The solar eclipse. The super moon. I mean...it just goes on and on and on and on.

This is just a new manifestation of control by the world's owners to keep us at bay. News is so accessible. You can make a split second decision on how you feel about something just from a headline. Then share the article as if it's law. It requires no actual critical thinking. It's a reaction. And when we're questioned or refuted on that reaction, we get defensive. An argument ensues. Next thing you know you've spent hours typing faster and harder than normal just to emphasize your point. And you've lost hours of thinking about the things that really matter most.

If you disagree, consider this: Facebook spends roughly $1 billion a year on their infrastructure. ONE. BILLION. DOLLARS. You think they're spending that kind of cake because they want you to share a picture of your fuckin' cat? Their whole entire goal is to keep you in the feed. Nothing else. As long as you're hooked into the feed, they don't give a shit about you. They actually give more of a shit about you when you don't visit their site or open their app for a while! They're keeping tabs on that too. Facebook loves sending me emails trying to coax me to see pictures from someone I haven't engaged with in a while just to get me back in.

Bottom line: Have a real conversation. Stop barking. Listen. Start changing yourself, not the world. I struggle with this often but remind myself it's important to listen to other people. You just might learn something. It's ok to be wrong.

This was another collage piece and was fun to make. The trend lately has been "I wish I had more time." This is one I'll definitely go back to when all is said and done and smooth it over.

An upside: It was good to get back into focusing on design first, animation later. The animation is fairly simple and was easy to execute once the Frankenstein job I did in Photoshop was complete. And even though there are many things I'd want to fix or change, I'm happy that the concept stayed in tact. This film ended up just as absurd and ridiculous as I originally intended while including an overall "aha!".